Slitherine

quote:

As the USSR began its forced-industrialization in the 1930s, warships were on the list. Stalin’s plans included a grand fleet of battleships. Command makes this historical footnote playable, and thus a look at the navy is worth it.

By the time of the revolution Russia’s navy was a shambles, wrecked in World War I and the earlier conflict with Japan. Losses in the civil war continued this miserable trend, and a much higher military priority was given to readying the land forces.

Yet the capital ship program continued. Even though Soviet industry could barely build cruisers, the battleships were still laid down. One extensive study on the program suggested that Stalin’s infamous deal with Germany was due in part to further the buildup since it had few other potential partners. (The Soviets even ordered two cruisers right from German yards, a fact made ironic by the recent fate of the Mistral amphibious ships they planned to acquire.)

In World War II, large warships would only be a waste of resources given that the war was decided on land. Stalin continued a now-anachronistic buildup after the war ended, but it progressed haltingly, and Khrushchev wasted little time in cancelling the Stalingrad battlecruisers and halting the purchase of Sverdlov gun cruisers.